So You Want To Be Found!

Posted on 31. Jul, 2005 by Nic in Web Design Articles

These days, everyone who has a website wants to be found online.

I mean, who doesn’t?

If you have a website and your website cannot be found if people do a search via any search engine, you’re basically toast.

If people can’t find you, they can’t buy from you. They can’t use your services. They can’t contact you. So it’s really important – being visible online when people do a search.

But it’s also not that easy to be found online. Just because you have a spiffy looking website with an even spiffier URL does not mean you can be found automatically online via Google, or Yahoo or MSN whenever someone runs a search.

I have had clients who come to me and say that they want to be found whenever people type in a search for keywords related to them and their business.

I often tell them that I cannot guarantee them first page listing on any search engine. I can help them optimize their content, write suitable metatags, write a more focused description, etc. and all that but I can never play God and guarantee that they can be found. Even I can’t guarantee myself that. That’s why I am always tweaking and testing my websites.

For metatags, keywords, etc. and etc. are not the only factors which determine if you can be found online.

Other factors come into play. For example, you can have all the metatags in the world but if your website has not even an iota of information on it, you can be sure the search engine spiders won’t be coming around. And even if you had these information on your website, another factor to think about is whether your content is rich in specific keywords.

Besides this, you must also think about factors such as links. Is any website out there linked to you? Are you linked to external websites? It is also not a matter how amassing links because the quality of your links matter too.

Try using URLTrends to check out your links. Basically, URLTrends allows “webmasters, search engine optimizers, and domain buyers to determine a website’s (or a specific pages) rankings in the various search engines and directories”.

Is your content frequently updated on your website? Think about this seriously. Search engine spiders love websites which are constantly updated with new information.

These are but a few of the many factors which come into play. It’s not easy work but it’s fun work (well, for me anyway since I’m in this web business).

Getting noticed online is hard work because things move rapidly. If you are interested in getting the top spot in any search engine results page, you have to put in the effort.